On Nov. 2, the Benton Museum of Art invited Leah Mata Fragua to speak on the climate crisis’s impact on the practice of Indigenous art.
Fragua is a place-based artist and a member of the yak tityu tityu yak tiłhini Tribe, located on the California coast. She is also an adjunct professor in the Indigenous Liberal Studies Department at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Fragua presented a talk titled “An Exploration of Memory, Resistance and Creativity in a Time of Environmental Flux,” followed by a conversation with Dr. Meranda Roberts regarding ephemeral art and advocating for change in art institutions. Dr. Roberts, a visiting professor of art history at Pomona College, is a member of the Yerington Paiute Tribe and aims to hold colonial institutions accountable for the harmful narratives related to Indigenous people.
Realizing that there isn’t much of an Indigenous presence at the Claremont Colleges, Dr. Roberts invited renowned artist Fragua to help shine a light on the history of these people for students and faculty.
“I really wanted to bring out, specifically, a California native artist because I feel like at the colleges that we do not have enough of a native presence here,” Roberts said. “I realized as I’m teaching that there’s so much history of native people here being represented or talked about but not from the communities.”
Fragua began the conversation by elaborating on her artistic philosophy: place-based artistry.
“I consider myself a place-based artist … and [that means] work that comes from a place [with] materials of shared stories, shared history [that] is low tech, heavy on process,” she said. “It actually shapes the way that we make things, the way they aesthetically look … also helps shape our identity.”
Many of her pieces use Indigenous art mediums, such as traditional wooden baskets and shellwork. However, due to the ongoing climate crisis, Fragua reflected on how Indigenous artists, herself included, often cannot access those materials.
“My main medium was … traditional shellwork … but there has been a shift in the availability of abalone, and it is no longer legal for us to harvest it,” Fragua said. “It’s more than just an environmental concern … I feel like oftentimes Indigenous communities are left mitigating our own problems we didn’t cause.”
“I will have elders saying ‘but that’s not traditional,’” Fragua said. “We’ve had such great loss of our material culture that oftentimes to steer away from it might seem less traditional … I think that there is room for both: that we can still practice our traditions but we can also be innovative at the same time so that we don’t stop creating.”
Dr. Roberts also shared her perspective on a modern approach to Indigenous art: ephemeral art, which Fragua practices.
“There’s something beautiful about adding a piece of art that isn’t supposed to live forever in conversation with pieces that are kind of forced to live forever … because we get to have our ancestors be in conversation with each other,” Roberts said. “We don’t have the opportunity from the collection items [to] hear those stories, but they exist and we have to make space for them.”
Fragua’s tribe isn’t federally recognized. As a result, despite having access to health services, they do not qualify for scholarships. In addition, the Indian Arts and Crafts Art only permits members of federally recognized tribes to sell their art as Indigenous art.
“I have a legal situation I’m constantly having to navigate because those treaties were never ratified,” Fragua said. “If you look at the federally recognized tribes in California … they’re not off the coast and they’re not gold territory … Our coasts offer ports for the military and oil refineries … There is a reason why there are no federally recognized tribes on the coast.”
Attendee Tatiana Jaimes PO ’25 found the talk to be a refreshing perspective on art, especially through an Indigenous perspective.
“A lot of art has been forced into a capitalistic lens, just producing and being admired and not having a purpose,” Jaimes said. “Art [doesn’t] need to be here forever and … humans [are not] here forever [either] … So [art is] an extension of self, which is [an] Indigenous way of thinking.”
Attendee Lina Tejeda, a graduate student in history at a school in San Bernardino, was surprised to learn about the Indian Arts and Crafts Act.
“I didn’t take into account that artists have to prove they’re native and that people will actually come looking for them for answers to verify that they’re actually selling their own [culture’s] art,” Tejeda said.
Fragua urged artists to reject the binary mindset of either completely following traditions or abandoning them. She observed that Indigenous peoples have always shifted and adapted traditions.
“I will have elders saying ‘but that’s not traditional,’” Fragua said. “We’ve had such great loss of our material culture that oftentimes to steer away from it might seem less traditional … I think that there is room for both: that we can still practice our traditions but we can also be innovative at the same time so that we don’t stop creating.”